lt-breaking tremblingly, and the big
brothers declared that the little girl would be buried some day with a
broken neck. But the little girl said nothing, and continued her riding
fearlessly, knowing that love, even with horses, makes all things
easy,--except the breaking of the blue mare.

Thirteen hands stood the blue mare, sound, clean-limbed, and beautiful,
and the markings of her sharp front teeth showed that she was but four.
From velvet muzzle to sweeping tail, from mottled croup to fetlocks, she
shone in the sunlight like corn-silk. Her mane was black and waved to
her wide chest, and her heavy forelock hid an inwardly curving nose that
proved an Arab strain. And when, after many spirited bouts with the hay
bolster, the little girl finally won her over to a soft blanket and a
stirruped girth, she showed the endurance and strength of a mustang, the
speed of a racer, and the gait of a rocking-chair.

She was so tall that she could not be climbed upon, like a pony, from
the upper side of sloping ground or from the stone pile on the
carnelian bluff, and too skittish to allow a bare foot to be thrust
behind her sleek elbows as a step to her back, so the little girl
invented a new method of mounting. Her nose was coaxed to the ground by
the offer of a choice wisp of grass, and, as her neck was lowered, the
little girl carefully put one leg over her glossy crest and gave her a
slap to start her,--when the blue mare raised her head and the little
girl hedged along to her back, facing rearward. Then she slowly turned
about!

Herding on the blue mare's back became a pleasure, not a despised duty,
and long jaunts to the station, ten miles away, for mail or groceries,
were welcomed. The eldest brother, too, had ceased to scold the little
girl for the trade with Black Cloud or for the loss of the horse that
was stolen. For the blue mare was worth two of the other.

The subject hardly ever came up in the farm-house any more; when it did,
it only served to remind the little girl of a dread prophecy of the
Swede, that, in good time, the swarthy brave would pass that way again!

The little girl always grew white at the bare thought. And often the
dream of the leering face and the clutching hand would follow her by
day. If she entered the barn, cruel eyes watched her from out dim
corners; if she rode through the corn-field, now waist high, the leaves
rustled a mysterious warning to her. "Run--run!" they whispered, and the
lit